Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia, by Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac. (Counterpoint, $19.) The 19th-century jousting between Russia and Britain.

A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President, by Jeffrey Toobin. (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, $14.) A plainspoken history of President Clinton's legal woes.

Voyage to the North Star, by Peter Nichols. (Carroll & Graf, $12.95.) Fiction about a disastrous hunting trip in the Arctic.

Waiting, by Ha Jin. (Vintage International, $13.) Fiction about a Chinese Army doctor's love for a nurse.

The Walking Tour, by Kathryn Davis. (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin, $13.) A literary whodunit about a strange accident in Wales.